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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27288028">The Sweetest Treat</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/kitkatt0430/pseuds/kitkatt0430'>kitkatt0430</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Hartmon Halloween [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Flash (TV 2014)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Cisco's been struggling with depression during the pandemic, Established Relationship, Fluff, Happily Married, Hartley wants Cisco to have a nice Halloween, Indoor Camping, M/M, Mental Health Issues, covid-19 shelter in place order, halloween decorations, lots of fluffy fluff</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 17:35:58</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,986</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27288028</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/kitkatt0430/pseuds/kitkatt0430</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Cisco's been a little down all month, knowing that his usual Halloween plans are off thanks to the ongoing pandemic.  Though he's pretty interested to find out just what his husband's been plotting to cheer him up...</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Cisco Ramon/Hartley Rathaway</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Hartmon Halloween [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1992433</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Hartmon Halloween</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>The Sweetest Treat</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>For the Sweet Treats prompt, in which the real treat isn't the candy.  It's how much Hartley wants to be able to treat Cisco to a fun holiday despite the pandemic making all their normal plans impossible.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Halloween is one of Cisco's favorite holidays.  It's the origin of his costume making skills, as he wanted to wear the coolest costumes for trick or treating as a kid.  (Though he perfected his skills while prepping for various fan conventions and stepped up his game considerably the moment Barry became a super hero while wearing Cisco's friction proof suit prototype.)  The candy is a bonus, of course, but the costumes...</p><p>They're not going anywhere this year.  Cisco's bummed about this.  He's not going to see his friends and he's bummed about this too.  There'll be a 'no contact' trick or treating for the kids in their complex, but it'll all be on the first floor, provided by the manager, and have everyone distancing more than six feet apart.  So they'll be missing out on the adorable kid's costumes too, because only families with children twelve and under are invited.</p><p>So basically, Cisco's spent the whole month a little extra mopey.  Hartley got him to perk up long enough to set out their usual decorations - some plastic pumpkins that light up when plugged in and a few other odds and ends - and to bake some pumpkin themed sugar cookies, but afterwards Cisco slipped back into his moping.  </p><p>Hartley tries to cajole Cisco into making them costumes anyway, but Cisco just doesn't have the energy.  The lack of social activities this year has brought back Cisco's depression, so he's been having video calls with his therapist since April.  Hartley convinces him to have an extra session or two with his therapist, which helps some.  He's not up to making new costumes from scratch, but he ends up trawling through costumes from previous Halloweens and cons and comes up with something for each of them to wear.  The end result, when they try out the costumes the week before Halloween, puts a giddy smile on Hartley's face that cheers Cisco up immensely.</p><p>And then one afternoon, just days before Halloween, Hartley goes on a shopping trip.  Ostensibly for groceries.</p><p>If it were just groceries, though, he wouldn't have made Cisco go sit in the bedroom until Hartley'd brought in all the bags and hidden stuff in their guest room.  So obviously Hartley is up to something.  And excitement sparks in Cisco's chest.  Because he wants to know what the surprise is already.</p><p>He manages not to go snooping around, though, because the last thing he wants is to accidentally vibe something and have everything spoiled beforehand.  The anticipation is half the fun, after all.  (And this way he gets to teasingly seduce Hartley, who 'holds out against the torturous pleasures' and keeps his secrets for now.  They're dorks and they both know it.)</p><p>But Halloween morning finally arrives and Cisco wakes to an empty bed and the sound of Hartley turning off their white noise generator.  The sounds of <em>The Monster Mash</em> filter in from the living room and Cisco smiles as he sits up and blinks at Hartley.</p><p>Hartley, who is wearing pajama pants and one of Cisco's t-shirts, a Halloween shirt with cute bats all over the front.  Cisco's smile turns a touch possessive at the sight.  He likes it when Hartley wears his clothes...</p><p>"Time to get up, Cisquito," Hartley trilled, tossing a bundle of fabric at Cisco's face.</p><p>"Hey!"  Cisco barely managed to catch it before being thwacked in the face with it.  "What's this?"</p><p>"It's a t-shirt," Hartley responded, tone deadpan.  "We can wear the costumes you picked out this evening.  For now, we're wearing comfy lounging stuff."</p><p>Cisco shook out the fabric to see that the shirt Hartley'd picked out for him was the one with the trick or treating ninja dressed as a ninja turtle.  He grins at the sight and swaps it for his sleep shirt before letting Hartley pull him out of bed and into a sweet kiss.</p><p>"You need to brush your teeth," Hartley told him immediately after the kiss broke.</p><p>"And people say romance is dead," Cisco replied and stuck his tongue out at Hartley before heading to the bathroom to brush his teeth as told.  "How long have you been up?" he asked as he reached for his toothbrush and toothpaste.</p><p>"A while," is the unhelpfully vague response.  "I thought for sure you'd have woken up when I moved the couch around, but you slept right through all the noise."</p><p>Cisco turns to face Hartley with a puzzled expression and his toothbrush now hanging out of his mouth.  What he intends to ask is, "why were you rearranging furniture?"  What he actually asks sounds more like whuffling noises, but Hartley gets the gist of it anyway.</p><p>"You do a much better job of enunciating your words when you don't have a toothbrush in your mouth," is Hartley's smartass response, before adding, "you'll see why I was rearranging stuff in a minute.  Hurry up and finish brushing already."</p><p>Cisco made an affirmative noise as he spat into the sink.</p><p>Some mouthwash and a quick water rinse later and the two of them finally headed out into the living room.  And Cisco honestly just... didn't know where to look first.</p><p>Hartley had not been joking about rearranging the furniture.  Their couch is a sleeper that pulls out into a full sized bed, so the couch has been shoved back a good distance from the tv in order to have it pull out all the way.  On top of that has been placed a bed tent - an indoor tent that fits snuggly around the mattress.  It's purple with stars on it and Cisco is super excited to see what's inside soon.  The coffee table and lounge chair have completely disappeared from view.  Cisco suspects the table is in the guest room, though the chair is probably just obscured by the bed tent since it wouldn't fit through the narrow bedroom doorway.  </p><p>The room itself is just... littered in Halloween decorations.  There's a graveyard set up behind the couch, with purple mood lighting, fake cotton spiderwebbing, several plastic skeletal remains, and what looks like a witch sitting in what is indeed their comfy chair when Cisco shuffles around to take a good look at the scenery.  In front of the couch, as Cisco bounces over to that side, has a 'pumpkin patch' setup including all their plastic pumpkins and quite a few new ones as well.  Glittery black candelabras flank the TV, which has the emby server up playing Halloween music - it's since switched to <em>Werewolves of London </em>after first<em> The Monster Mash </em>and then<em> I Put a Spell on You </em>both finished.  </p><p>The room itself has the lights off aside from the graveyard mood lighting, every single pumpkin, the sparkly candelabra, and what looks to be an LED torch hanging from the inside of the bed tent.  The windows are all covered up with blackout curtains, though the kitchen light is still on.</p><p>"I love this so much, Hart.  It's amazing."  Cisco twirled around and kissed his husband, wrapping his arms around the other man and holding him tightly.</p><p>"Check out inside the tent.  I'll join you in a minute," Hartley promised, kissing Cisco lightly on the nose, which was immediately scrunched up because nose kisses always felt weird.</p><p>Cisco happily checked out the tent next.  The front of it opened to give a good view of the TV, with all the remotes tucked away in easily reachable pockets in the far 'wall' of the tent.  There were pillows and blankets and Halloween themed plushies all over the bed.  Even the sheets were soft and new with adorable little bats and skeletons and grinning jack o'lantern designs repeating across them.  It was the most adorable Halloween themed love nest.  Hartley must've worked really hard all morning, putting it all together.</p><p>"Okay, so there's candy in that ridiculous screaming hand candy bowl you love so much.  But it's on the kitchen counter," Hartley announced, joining Cisco in the tent and bringing a tray of food and covered drinks in carefully with him as he did.  "I didn't want to risk getting Reese's Pieces all over the couch bed.  I've made scary Monster Omelets using the beet juice monster extract recipe from that Zelda cookbook you got through Kickstarter.  It's not exactly purple but hopefully the rest of it'll turn out a more decent shade.  Because all of today's cuisine, in fact, comes entirely from the Monster Menu.  Lunch will be Monster Curry and Rice and dinner will be Monster Stew.  And I also made the blueberry version of the monster extract to make icing with because dessert will be Monster Cake."</p><p>Cisco was giggling as he carefully pushed their purple-ish omelettes aside to give Hartley another kiss.  "Have you been cooking all morning as well as redecorating?"</p><p>"I got up really early," Hartley confessed.  "The cake has baked already so it just needs to be iced later.  And I got all the ingredients ready to just be dropped into a skillet for lunch.  And dinner is already simmering in our slow cooker.  So... yeah."  He yawned and then blushed.</p><p>"Well, lets eat our omelettes and... I assume you had a plan for what we'll be watching today?"  Cisco grabbed one of the spooky themed tumblers full of orange juice to take a drink.  He got distracted, though, as he realized they weren't just 'spooky' but Snoopy themed too.  "Oh these are so cute, I love these."</p><p>"I put together a movie playlist," Hartley said, cheerfully grabbing the roku remote so that he could pull up the playlist in question, switching away from the music list that had been playing.  "<em>Blackbeard's Ghost</em>, <em>The Ghost and Mr. Chicken</em>, <em>Clue</em>, <em>Nightmare Before Christmas</em>..." Hartley grinned impishly.  "I put a lot of movies on the playlist, so I was kind of thinking we'd just sleep out here tonight and keep up our Halloween-a-thon tomorrow too.  I've got the Wii-U and Switch and the 3DS in easy reach, so we can play games too.  And charging cords for our phones and tablets... basically, we can just nest here all day if we want."</p><p>There's a slightly manic edge to Hartley's voice that tells Cisco he's just about to crash.  Better get him fed and curled up in the blankets soon so that Hartley can go to sleep instead of getting cranky.  Probably got up way too early to get everything done, but Cisco loves the results.  Hartley deserves a little pampering - and nap time - for putting this all together for Cisco's sake.</p><p>"Time for some purple omelettes," Cisco declared, settling back against the pillows and carefully situating one of the plates on his lap.</p><p>Hartley started the first movie - Blackbeard's Ghost - and followed suit, nomming on the tasty food (which Cisco was happy to praise because it was oh so good with little bacon bits and ham and cheese and black olives and chives in it).  When the food was finished, Cisco moved quickly to clear the plates, leaving his cup in a little cup holder built into one of the tent 'walls' alongside Hartley's.  Sure enough, Hartley was already starting to nod off by the time Cisco was clambering back into bed with him and by the time the movie reached the relay race that Blackbeard interfered with (to hilarious results), Hartley was fast asleep and snuggled against Cisco's side.</p><p>Absently, Cisco slid his fingers through Hartley's hair and munched on the handful of Reese's Pieces he'd snagged (after turning off the screaming hand so as not to startle Hartley with it).  Though the candy was tasty and Cisco couldn't wait to try a piece of the chocolate Monster cake that evening, the sweetest treat of the day was definitely Hartley himself and all the effort he'd put into making the day still be whimsical and fun for Cisco.</p><p>Smiling fondly and snuggling his sleeping husband closer, Cisco murmured softly, "love you, my Hart."</p>
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